155MM HISTORY
The French first developed the 155mm round to respond to World War I’s extensive trench warfare, and early versions included gas shells, Keri Pleasant, historian for the Army’s Joint Munitions Command, said in a statement to The Associated Press.
As World War I continued, the 155mm gun became the most common artillery piece used by the Allies, Pleasant said, and the US Army later adopted it as its standard field heavy artillery piece.
The US military fielded its own version, the M1, for World War II. After the war, the new NATO alliance adopted the 155mm as its artillery standard.
By the Korean War, the round had been modified again, with a cluster munition variant. “The round contained 88 submunitions, which were dispersed over a wide area to destroy vehicles, equipment, and personnel,” Pleasant said.
ITS USE IN UKRAINE
Howitzer fires can strike targets up to 24 to 32km away, depending on what type of round and firing system is used, which makes them highly valued by ground forces to take out enemy targets from a protected distance.
“Adversaries don’t have much warning of it coming. And it’s harder to hide from incoming rounds that are arcing in from the top, which makes it highly lethal,” Brobst said.
In Ukraine, 155mm rounds are being fired at a rate of 6,000 to 8,000 a day, said Ukrainian parliamentary member Oleksandra Ustinova, who serves on Ukraine’s wartime oversight committee. They are eclipsed by the estimated 40,000 Russian variant howitzer rounds fired at them, she told reporters at a recent Washington event sponsored by the German Marshall Fund.
The Pentagon previously had said how many rounds it was providing in each of the security assistance packages being sent about every two weeks to keep weapons and ammunition flowing into Ukraine. But it stopped specifying the number of 155mm rounds shipped in each package in February, citing operational security.
However, in its overall count of assistance provided to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, the Pentagon says it has sent more than 160 155mm howitzers, more than 1.5 million 155mm rounds, more than 6,500 precision-guided 155mm rounds and more than 14,000 155mm Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems – essentially a 155mmm shell packed with four mines that scatter on the ground and can take out a Russian tank if it drives over them.
Other countries have also provided howitzers, but Kyiv has continually asked for more. As of last year Ukrainian officials were requesting as many as 1,000 howitzer systems to push Russian forces back.
SPRING OFFENSIVE
As Ukraine prepares for an intense counteroffensive this spring, it will likely need to fire 7,000 to 9,000 155mm shells a day, said Yehor Cherniev, a member of Ukraine’s parliament who spoke to reporters at the German Marshall Fund event.
In recent months, the Biden administration has been using presidential drawdown authority to send ammunition directly from US military stockpiles to Ukraine, instead of having to wait and buy rounds from defense firms, so they can get there in time for the anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The US has also been training Ukrainian troops in Germany on how to better use the 155mm rounds in combined arms tactics – coordinating strikes with targeting information provided by forward-based troops and other armored systems to maximise damage and reduce the number of rounds needed to take out a target.
Source: CNA
